This invention relates to devices for controlling the exchange of air through openings of refrigerated fixtures.
Frozen or refrigerated goods, particularly frozen or refrigerated foods, for use in restaurants or other cold storage facilities are typically stored in refrigerated fixtures which include one or more doors which pivot open. The doors provide access to the refrigerated fixtures. However, these doors are kept open continuously during peak periods when restaurant personnel need to remove frozen food from the fixture. Also, when the doors are kept open at least a substantial portion of the time they tend to get in the way of restaurant personnel.
Many attempts have been made to reduce the air exchange at the open refrigerated fixture doors. One common approach has been to use an air curtain across the door with the forced flow of relatively high velocity air across the opening serving both to restrict the normal air exchange resulting from the temperature differential and to mix or dilute any air which does pass through the air curtain. Examples of such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,218,952 and 3,817,160. However, the doors still are in the way of restaurant personnel.
Physical barriers, particularly strip doors, are also used to restrict the flow of air through an open refrigerated fixture door. Strip doors employ transparent vinyl strips which enable personnel to push through, with the strips falling back into place to act as an air flow barrier when the personnel has cleared the door. Strip doors tend to become less transparent with use and present an obstruction to vision.
It would therefore be advantageous to have a refrigerated fixture which both restricts the air flow between the interior of the rerigerated fixture and the ambient air outside the refrigerated fixture and which has one or more doors which do not get in the way of the personnel using the refrigerated fixture.